Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich Page A

to tighten. Was this the last thing her husband saw before he died? He looked at Holly standing in the doorway.
    â€œThis is a beautiful picture,” he told her somberly.
    â€œIsn’t it?” Holly said from her spot in the hallway. She hadn’t been in this room in almost a year. After the funeral, when everyone returned to their own lives, she’d spent days in it. She would sit on the rented hospital bed and think, This was the last place Bruce was alive. Surely his spirit would linger, freed from the confines of pain, she told herself, even if only long enough to point her in the right direction. Ignoring the hospice’s calls to arrange a pickup, she kept paying the bill on all the equipment in the room and waited for a sign that would tell her what to do next. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. The instructions never came, the hopelessness mounted, and she walked out of the room and into despair. She never shut the door to it though, just in case. To see Logan in the room was both amazing and unsettling. The ultimate positive life force was standing in the middle of the death room.
    â€œHolly,” Logan asked her gently, breaking into her thoughts, “maybe you want to put this stuff in storage?”
    â€œI don’t own it,” she replied, devoid of any emotion.
    â€œIs it included in the things being picked up tomorrow?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWould you like it to be?” His voice was soothing, his eyes full of compassion.
    It only took one look at his face, and Holly knew the answer he hoped she would give. She wordlessly nodded her head, maintaining the same blank expression.
    â€œDo you own any tools?” he asked in the same comforting tone.
    â€œTools?” she repeated, confused.
    â€œScrewdrivers, wrenches, stuff like that?”
    â€œThere’s a box in the garage,” she said from the doorway. She watched Logan walk across the room to grab a monitor in each hand before joining her.
    â€œLet’s go get it,” he said pragmatically. “They’ll never be able to get this bed out the door without removing the rails and the legs. Who needs a couple of goofballs in here scratching up your hardwood floors and banging into your walls? We’ll put everything together downstairs and it’ll all be in one spot for when it gets picked up.”
    She took one of the monitors he was holding and he followed her back downstairs. They dropped off the monitors in the dining room and she took him to the garage. He made casual chatter that she didn’t hear a word of. To acknowledge she heard him would require responses on her part. She wasn’t capable of coherent responses; she was one step from a blathering mess. She wanted to be numb and focused and not bother him with further drama. She had done too much of that already. He didn’t seem to mind her being distracted. He wasn’t disapproving of the fact that she had effectively put off this horrid chore for well over a year. He picked up the toolbox; she got a Ziploc bag for the nuts, bolts, and screws; and they went back upstairs.
    â€œI’ve got this,” he told her before going back into the bedroom, “if you want to finish up someplace else.”
    She felt the look of relief spreading over her face. He knew. It was like he could feel her agony. She nodded mutely at him and retreated to the safety of her own room. An empty box waited for her and automatically she began to fill it with Bruce’s most personal effects. She started with the bathroom and his toiletry kit, which contained his electric razor, his deodorant, and the cologne she occasionally got him to wear. She removed all his prescription bottles, many half full, making a mental note to dispose of them properly. Holly pulled his toothbrush out of the holder, where it was stationed beside hers. She looked at her own toothbrush, now alone in the holder, and swallowed the lump in her throat. It